scholarly journals Occurrence climatology of equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) using optical observations over Kolhapur, India during solar cycle-24

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Onkar Gurav ◽  
Rupesh Ghodpage ◽  
Parashram Patil ◽  
Sripathi Samireddipalle ◽  
Ashok Sharma ◽  
...  

In this paper, the occurrence characteristics of the equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) using OI 630.0 nm all sky imager (ASI) night airglow observations over Kolhapur (16.8o N, 74.2o E, 10.6o dip. Lat.) during the solar cycle-24 are presented. These results are discussed in terms of season, solar and magnetic activity during years 2011 to 2018. The ASI observations were only carried out during January to May and October to December months due to unfavorable weather conditions. The results suggest that while January, February and December are the only months where EPBs were found to occur over Kolhapur in any year, but the percentage of occurrence of EPBs during these months suggests their low occurrence rate during solar minimum. A total of 683 nights of observations were carried, out of which, 93 nights are found to be magnetically disturbed nights having Ap>18. In addition, the ASI observations are also correlated with Pre-Reversal Enhancement of the vertical drift of the evening sector at Tirunelveli on few storm events for comparison. The important findings of this study are: 1) increase in the occurrence of EPBs with respect to the solar activity; 2) suppression of EPBs on 71 disturbed nights, while enhancement of EPBs on 22 nights under magnetic disturbance; 3) EPBs occurrence during equinox months is found to be higher than winter months during ascending phase of solar cycle-24.; and, 4) EPBs are mostly observed in the pre-midnight sector in the high solar activity (HSA) period, while they are seen in the post-midnight to dawn sector during the low solar activity (LSA) period. We also noticed non-occurrence of EPBs during equinox month in the year 2018 which seems to be peculiar and needs further investigations.

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 611-623
Author(s):  
Ankur Kepkar ◽  
Christina Arras ◽  
Jens Wickert ◽  
Harald Schuh ◽  
Mahdi Alizadeh ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Global Positioning System – Radio Occultation (GPS-RO) observations from FormoSat-3 ∕ COSMIC are used to comprehend the global distribution of equatorial plasma bubbles which are characterized by depletion regions of plasma in the F region of the ionosphere. Plasma bubbles that cause intense scintillation of the radio signals are identified based on the S4 index derived from the 1 Hz raw signal-to-noise ratio measurements between 2007 and 2017. The analyses revealed that bubbles influenced by background plasma density occurred along the geomagnetic equator and had an occurrence peak around the dip equator during high solar activity. The peak shifted between the African and American sectors, depending on different solar conditions. Plasma bubbles usually developed around 19:00 local time (LT), with maximum occurrence around 21:00 LT during solar maximum and ∼22:00 LT during solar minimum. The occurrence of bubbles showed a strong dependence on longitudes, seasons, and solar cycle with the peak occurrence rate in the African sector around the March equinox during high solar activity, which is consistent with previous studies. The GPS-RO technique allows an extended analysis of the altitudinal distribution of global equatorial plasma bubbles obtained from high vertical resolution profiles, thus making it a convenient tool which could be further used with other techniques to provide a comprehensive view of such ionospheric irregularities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Edward Nyongesa ◽  
Ndinya Boniface ◽  
Omondi George

Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPBs) are irregular plasma density depletions in the ambient electron density in the equatorial F-region ionosphere generated after sunset. EPBs are known to bring disruptions to telecommunication and navigation systems. This paper investigates the occurrence of EPBs over Kisumu, Kenya (Geomagnetic coordinates: 9.64o S, 108.59o E; Geographic coordinates: 0.02o S, 34.6o E) for a few selected quiet and storm days between 1st January 2013 and 31st December 2014 which was a high Solar activity period for Solar Cycle 24. The study brings out EPB occurrence pattern over Kisumu, Kenya for the selected quiet and storm days of 2013 and 2014. The Receiver Independent Exchange (RINEX) data was retrieved from the Kisumu high data-rate NovAtel GSV4004B SCINDA-GPS receiver. The data was unzipped and processed to obtain Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC), amplitude scintillation (S4) and Universal Time (UT) which were then fed into MATLAB to generate VTEC and S4 plots against UT for each selected quiet and storm day within the years 2013 and 2014. The Total Electron Content (TEC) depletion depths and S4 index values between 16:00 and 20:00 UT for each selected quiet and storm day were extracted from the VTEC and S4 plots and used to plot TEC depletion depths and S4 plots. The Rate of Change of TEC (ROT) and Rate of Change of TEC Index (ROTI) between 16:00 and 20:00 UT were generated from VTEC and used to plot ROT and the corresponding ROTI plots against UT. TEC depletion depths and ROTI values for each selected quiet and storm day between 16:00 and 20:00 UT were extracted and used to plot TEC depletion depths and ROTI plots and S4 index and ROTI plots. In this study, the enhancement of S4 index corresponded well with TEC depletions, increased fluctuation of ROT and higher ROTI values between 16:00UT and 20:00UT for most days. This correspondence was used in inferring the occurrence of EPBs during the selected quiet and storm days of the years 2013 and 2014. The obtained results showed that the highest EPB occurrence was during March equinox with 33.33% occurrence in the year 2013 and 30.76% occurrence in the year 2014, followed by the September equinox which had 20.38% occurrence in 2013 and 17.26% occurrence in 2014. The seasonal variation of EPB occurrence was attributed to the variation in the daytime E x B drift velocities. Larger E x B drift velocities resulted in increased EPB occurrence in the equinoctial period (March, April, August and September) and November solstice period (November and December) while lower E x B drift velocities resulted in reduced EPB occurrence in the June solstice period (June and July). The percentage EPB occurrence in the year 2013 was 6.49% while in the year 2014 was 4.32%. The storm period had percentage EPB occurrence of 21.42% in the year 2013 and 21.88% in the year 2014 while the quiet period had percentage EPB occurrence of 18.75% in the year 2013 and 7.89% in the year 2014. These results clearly showed that the percentage EPB occurrence was higher during the storm period than in the quiet period. Hence the development of EPBs was enhanced by geomagnetic activity through several competing dynamics such as Prompt Penetration Electric Field (PPEF), Disturbance Dynamo Electric Field (DDEF) and reduction in electron density due to increased recombination rates.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-85
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Mikhalev

In the paper, variations of the night emission intensities in the 557.7 and 630 nm atomic oxygen lines [OI] in 2011–2019 have been analyzed. The analysis is based on data from the ISTP SB RAS Geophysical Observatory. The emission intensities are compared with atmospheric, solar, and geophysical parameters. High correlation coefficients between monthly average and annual average 630.0 nm emission intensities and solar activity indices F10.7 have been obtained. This suggests a key role of solar activity in variations of this emission in the period of interest. Variations of the 557.7 nm emission demonstrate to a greater extent the correlations of the stratospheric zonal wind (QBO.U30 index) with quasi-biennial oscillations. The causes of the weak dependence of the 557.7 nm emission intensity on solar activity in solar cycle 24 are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmina Bouderba ◽  
Ener Aganou ◽  
Abdenaceur Lemgharbi

<p>In this work we will show the behavior of the horizontal component H of the Earth Magnetic Field (EMF) along the seasons during the period of solar cycle 24 lasting from 2009 to 2019. By means of  continuous measurements of geomagnetic components (X, Y) of the EMF, we compute the horizontal component H at the Earth’s surface. The data are recorded with a time resolution of one minute at Tamanrasset observatory in Algeria at the geographical coordinates of 22.79° North and 5.53° East. These data are available from the INTERMAGNET network. We find that the variation in amplitude of the hourly average of H component at low latitude changes from a season to another and it is greater at the maximum solar activity than at the minimum solar activity.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Solar cycle 24, Season, Horizontal component H. </p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 157-168
Author(s):  
Wafaa H.A. Zaki

The ionosphere layer (F2) is known as the most important layer for High frequency (Hf) radio communication because it is a permanent layer and excited during the day and night so it is able to reflect the frequencies at night and day due to its high critical frequency, and this layer is affected by daily and monthly solar activity. In this study the characteristics and behavior of F2 layer during Solar cycle 24 were studied, the effect of Sunspots number (Ri) on the critical frequency (foF2), were investigated for the years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) which represents the down phase of the solar cycle 24 over Erbil station (36° N, 44° E) by finding the critical frequency (foF2) values, the layer’ s impression times are determined for the days of solstice as well as equinox, where the solar activity was examined for the days of the winter and summer solstice and the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes for a period of 24 hours by applied the International Reference Ionosphere model IRI (2016). The output data for foF2 were verified by using the IRI-Ne- Quick option by specifying the time, date and Sunspot number parameters. Statistical analysis was caried out through the application of the Minitab (version 2018) in order to find the correlation between the critical frequency (foF2) of Ionospheric layer F2 and Sunspot number. It was concluded that the correlation is strong and positive, this indicate that critical frequency (foF2) increase with increasing Sunspots number (Ri) for solar cycle 24.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Samar Abdalkaream Thabit ◽  
Loay E. George ◽  
Khalid A. Hadi

In this research, the seasonal Optimal Reliable Frequency (ORF) variations between different transmitter/receiver stations have been determined. Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra have been chosen as tested transmitting stations that located in the northern, center, and southern of Iraqi zone. In this research, the minimum and maximum years (2009 and 2014) of solar cycle 24 have been chosen to examine the effect of solar activity on the determined seasonal ORF parameter. Mathematical model has been proposed which leads to generate the Optimal Reliable Frequency that can maintain the seasonal connection links for different path lengths and bearings. The suggested ORF parameter represented by a different orders polynomial equation. The polynomial equation has been determined depending on different selected parameters (path length, bearing, time (day), months and BUF values). The suggested seasonal ORF parameter was examined for the three stations of the adopted years. The value of the seasonal ORF ionospheric parameter increased with the increase of path length and varies with the bearing between the transmitting and receiving stations also, the seasonal ORF values were higher at maximum solar cycle (2014) than the minimum solar cycle (2009).


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